‘Atlas Shrugged’: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years

#TCOT #diggcons

by Stephen Moore on WSJ-Opinion

‘Atlas Shrugged’: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years Some years ago when I worked at the libertarian Cato Institute, we used to label any new hire who had not yet read “Atlas Shrugged” a “virgin.” Being conversant in Ayn Rand’s classic novel about the economic carnage caused by big government run amok was practically a job requirement. If only “Atlas” were required reading for every member of Congress and political appointee in the Obama administration. I’m confident that we’d get out of the current financial mess a lot faster. Many of us who know Rand’s work have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that “Atlas Shrugged” parodied in 1957, when this 1,000-page novel was first published and became an instant hit. …(Read full article)

More studies debunking Obamanomics

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And surprisingly, they keep coming from liberal California universities. 

If you recall, the other day Michelle Malkin shook the dust off a 2005 UCLA study that found FDR’s massive economic recovery plan, The New Deal, actually prolonged The Great Depression.  Still, Obama disregards such science and claims economists “from across the spectrum” agree that massive government spending is the only thing that can revive this economy.

Okay, well maybe he just thinks the conclusions reached in that study were wrong.  Perhaps if there were others proving his plan (for which we’ve seen virtually no details, but he keeps assuring us it exists) wrong, maybe then he’d wake up and see the fallacy of his thinking.

Well, here’s a post on The American Thinker describing two studies, one from UC Berkeley and the other from UC San Diego, that conclude tax cuts produce more than twice the growth in GDP than government “stimulus” spending.

So we have three studies conducted by liberal universities in the solid blue state of California all concluding that a conservative approach to stimulus–primarily tax cuts–is more than twice as effective in accomplishing its goal than is a liberal approach–namely government spending.

History and economics tell us Obama’s strategy won’t work, but he’s charging ahead.  Promising trillion dollar deficits (yes that’s $1,000,000,000,000) for the foreseeable future, but saying the alternative is really bad.  His own economists have stated their predictions for growth can’t be trusted, but “The Smooth Talker from Chicago/Hawaii/Kenya/????” is dead set on pursuing this perilous path.

I’m afraid we’re in for a long, hard ride.

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Related Posts

Obama’s new New Deal stimulus package could prolong economic crisis–Examiner.com

Rep. Chaffetz (R-UT): Leading by example

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The new freshman Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican from Utah, will forego the comforts of home while serving in the US House of Representatives. Rather than renting an apartment, he’s decided to sleep on a cot in his office to save money.

“I will save $1,500 a month doing this. I get paid a very handsome salary, no doubt about it, but you know, I’ve got expenses and a future for my kids and my family, too.”–US Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)

In tough economic times, this is leadership by example!

Obama’s on television every day now, claiming that he and big government are our only hope for avoiding economic catastrophe.  He wants to spend our way out of this economic downturn with money we don’t have, money (plus interest) our children (and theirs, and theirs, …) will have to repay in the future.  He hopes his plan will trade our children’s future economic security for our ability to buy more big screen TV’s, high-priced video games, and $500 telephones.

Throughout American history, most generations strived to create a better future for their children, but Obama wants to sell our children into fiscal slavery so we can have our toys.

This is not to give Bush a pass.  Though I supported his tax cuts, I expected spending cuts that never materialized in his administration.  Government grew at an alarming rate under his leadership while the MSM and the left labeled him a radical right wing conservative.  Bush’s spending policies didn’t contain a hint of conservatism and that’s a large part of why we are where we are.

What we’re seeing now in Rep. Chaffetz, is an understanding that Republicans must return to true conservative principles if they want to regain the trust of their constituencies.  After the profligate spending of the past eight years, it’s going to take a lot to convince conservative Americans the GOP is once again on the right path.  This is an excellent start.

Chaffetz is sending a message that any real solution to America’s financial crisis is going to require sacrifice on all our parts.  That sacrifice is what Obama’s plan seeks to avoid in the short term while it pushes the trouble down the road for our children to suffer.

This problem was created by overspending.  Government, businesses, and ordinary Americans all had a hand in it.  It won’t be cured by even more, record breaking, overspending, but by a realignment of American priorities.  Wants and needs are two very different things, but in the last few years we’ve treated them as equivalent.  Americans must once again learn to recognize the difference.

Representative Chaffetz’s actions are showing us the way to truly recover from this crisis.  Hopefully we’ll learn the lesson.

Who will pay for the Generational Theft Act of 2009?

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Just to emphasize who will suffer the most from Obama’s promised years of trillion dollar deficits.  Here are some of the soon-to-be-victims’ faces.

But hey, what does it matter as long as our legislators and President-elect get to spend all that money?

Why we DON’T need Obama’s Generational Theft Act

Brian Reidl with the Heritage Foundation debates Center for American Progress’ James Kvaal on C-SPAN.  It’s almost an hour long, but this message needs to be heard!

Enjoy.

Who are the fear mongers?

#TCOT #diggcons

The dems are screeching from every platform in America about the inevitable destruction of life as we know it if we don’t all lay down and let them steamroll us with what Michelle Malkin has suitably titled The Generational Theft Act of 2009.  Obama’s was out the other day guaranteeing us trillion dollar deficits for the foreseeable future, but telling us we should be afraid of what would happen without them.  Without digging the deficit hole so deep our great-great grandchildren may not refill it in their lifetimes, things could get really bad according to the President-elect–even dire.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tells Americans to trust the politicians who passed the laws, catered the corruption, and ignored the warnings that led to our economy’s current unstable foundation–they can fix it.  Reminds me of the movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont Hight” when Shawn Penn wrecked the football star’s car and said “I can fix it.”  She says we shouldn’t fear mortgaging our grandchildren’s future, but be very afraid of not being able to buy a new big screen TV this year.

If you’ve read my other posts regarding the bailout/stimulus/Socialist spending plans the last few weeks, you already know where I stand.  Ronald Reagan said it best when he said, “Government takes from the needy and gives to the greedy.”  Fred Thompson does a great job explaining why this plan-to-save-us-from-certain-death is fundamentally flawed here.  And you can see another great explanation of the fallacy of Keynesian economics from Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute in this video.

What, you still don’t believe those folks know what they’re talking about?  Well, how about two UCLA professors who studied the Great Depression and concluded that Roosevelt’s policies didn’t save us from the Depression, they made it worse!  Again, thanks to Michelle Malkin for bringing this study to light.  These two professors, from UCLA (not a right-wing think tank by any means) mind you, set out to find why the Great Depression lasted soooooo loooonng and discovered FDR’s attempts to stimulate the economy actually stifled it!

Their conclusion:

“Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened.”

Yet, here we go again. Using the same flawed logic and theory that FDR used to make a bad depression worse, Democrats are trying to strike fear of the alternatives into the hearts of Americans.

We need to work hard to make sure these idiots only control all three branches of government for 2 years or the human race may be extinct before we can recover from their stimulus.

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Related Posts

Flashback: UCLA study on FDR’s growth-stifling policies–Michelle Malkin

Nancy Pelosi: Stop talking about the cost of the stimulus!–Michelle Malkin

When Tax and Spend Liberalism Meets Bankruptcy–Blogs for Victo(R)y

CAP: The Country Needs More Bush/Obamaism–The Foundry